The Second Coming of Steven Jobs

Now, more than a year later, he insists that he has managed to put Apple behind him. Surely, this is wishful thinking. Apple had always been a reflection of Jobs’ personality, a mirror of his eccentricities and passions. He used to talk, for instance, about making Apple an “insanely great” place to work, but he wasn’t talking about irresistible perks or liberal benefits. Instead, he was talking about creating an environment where you would work harder and longer than you’d ever worked in your life, under the most grinding of deadline pressure, with more responsibility than you ever thought you could handle, never taking vacations, rarely getting even a weekend off . . . and you wouldn’t care! You’d love it! You’d get to the point where you couldn’t live without the work and the responsibility and the grinding deadline pressure. All of the people in this room had known such feelings about work — feelings that were exhilarating and personal and even intimate — and they’d known them while working for Steve Jobs. They all shared a private history of their work together at Apple. It was their bond, and no one who was not there could ever fully understand it.